In his family they call them ‘bed biscuits’, the Tunnock’s Caramel Wafers Garry Batten still keeps in his caravan today.
From 1968 when his parents bought their first, a 10ft Bluebird too small for a toilet, his dad would always bring him a mug of tea and a wafer first thing, as he lay snuggled in his fold-out bunk.
In those days there was no heating safe to keep on overnight, so his dad would tiptoe out first, and boil a kettle to warm up the chilly van, making the drinks for six-year-old Garry, his little brother and their mum. A second kettle was for boiling water to wash in.
By 1970, they’d joined the Sprite Club, with the arrival of their first plush Sprite caravan – 16ft this time.
At a rally soon after, little Garry met his future in-laws, and spotted his future bride, Marilyn, at the tuck shop.
Much later, at another rally in 1984 over a August bank holiday weekend, the pair met properly, by which time Garry, 22, was the proud owner of his own caravan, a 12ft Sprite Alpine.
Two years later, he gave her an engagement ring there, tucked in the paws of a cuddly bunny, and it became their home from home; their weekend escape, later with their four-week-old newborn, Angela, in tow.
Today, Angela, 30, and her husband Mark have their own caravan, while Garry and Marilyn tour in style in a fully heated, 19ft model complete with shower and oven.
They still enjoy bed biscuits, although the kettle’s only needed for tea.
Their story is the perfect example of the British love affair with caravanning, once again booming today.
“When I’m in the caravan it brings back all those memories. It’s so different now, but the essence is exactly the same,” says Garry, 60, from Portsmouth.
“It’s our happy place. If you cut me in half, caravanning would be running through me like a stick of rock. It’s our life, it’s in our blood.”
Quietly, he adds: “My mum carried on caravanning with us when my dad died, but I don’t think I could do it without Marilyn.”
As schools brace to break and the summer exodus begins, the sight of a caravan being towed in the slow lanes of our motorways will be far from a bygone sight this holiday season.
The advent of the package holiday and cheap flights may have dented the caravan’s original allure, but Britain developed a fresh passion for the pursuit during the pandemic, when staycations were the easiest option.
And with a foreign getaway still far from straightforward, that newfound love seems to be holding.
One in five Britons has been on a camping or caravan holiday since the pandemic, and around 4.5 million slept in a tent or caravan for the first time.
At Easter, Camping and Caravanning Club figures revealed bookings for its 100 sites were up 33% on the year before.
Dealerships have struggled to meet supply as a growing number of under-40s opted to buy a caravan.
Garry, a driver trainer for the police, chuckles at the number of times he is asked for advice.
For him, and so many others, caravanning is so much more than a holiday. It’s who they are. His family lived on an estate in west London. His dad was a caretaker and cleaner, and his mum a telephonist. Caravanning was unusual.
“A lot of my dad’s colleagues spent time in the pub, their kids on the streets. Dad didn’t want that for us,” he explains.
He remembers his first caravan holiday on top of a very windy hill in Cornwall in ’68 with affection.
“It did rock,” he concedes. “I remember going to Hayling Island and walking on the beach with Dad, collecting golf balls. I’d make friends with the other caravanning kids and just disappear, play in the farmers’ haystacks, explore.”
Many are still my friends today.
“With Marilyn I remember seeing the Steve Wright Radio One roadshow on Weymouth beach; I remember going to Bourton-On-The-Water in 1985 and it snowing, the pipes freezing. We trundled to a pub which was shut, but they let us in for dinner and a roaring fire.”
Andrew Jenkinson feels the same. The author has written 16 books on the caravan, his latest, The Touring Caravan Story – A History of Towing.
His parents’ bought their first in 1969. The family from Bispham, near Blackpool, would head off for weekends, sometimes stopping in lay-bys.
He was 11 and his sister was 15.
“It was fantastic,” says Andrew, 63. “You’d put the legs down, fill the water and then you’d be off, finding friends. My dad taught me how to fish. We mowed a square and had a cricket and football pitch. We’d get fish and chips and mum would lay the table with proper cups and saucers and a teapot. If it rained there would be condensation on the windows, but I don’t ever remember feeling bored.”
Retiree Roger Williams echoes that. The 72-year-old from Halesowen, near Birmingham, began caravanning in 1963, and in 1983 bought his own.His family often drove to the New Forest. “We were closer to nature. I remember my brother being bitten by a New Forest pony,” he recalls.
“We’d play football, Monopoly, get in the car to visit places. My mother might prepare a joint of meat before, and carve it up in the caravan, although I’m not sure we bothered with gravy. Once we went to Spain, it was an adventure. I helped pump the tyres and kept a log of the journey.
“When my children were small we’d fill the caravan up with a playpen and high chair. They have got the wanderlust now, my daughter has a caravan and both lads have tents.”
Once these three enthusiasts sniffed the freedom of the open road, there was no turning back.
“When the blinds are down, you could be anywhere,” says Garry.
Anywhere, with a Tunnock’s Caramel Wafer.
The Touring Caravan Story - A History of Towing, is published by The History Press
